"I got very excited about coming up with a list of Sensational Teams, which is how my own characters in Code Name Verity refer to themselves. But it was hard work narrowing down my teams, so I had to make myself some rules for a fair elimination process. Here's the system I decided to follow. Each team would have to be a Dynamic Duo rather than a fellowship of three or more (that ruled out the Swallows and the Pevensies), and the pair's involvement with each other had to further a plot unconnected with any potential romance between them (that ruled out Romeo and Juliet). I also decided that for the purposes of this list each pair of favourites needed to be the main characters in their own stories (that ruled out Fred and George Weasley).
I brainstormed a much longer list than I needed. When I looked it over to choose my top ten, I was amazed and also somewhat disgusted. There wasn't a single pair of girls on the list. There were more stuffed animals than girls on the list.
I couldn't even think of any female partnerships. I thought of 'best friends', such as Sara and Ermengarde in A Little Princess or Anne and Diana in Anne of Green Gables, but those stories really belong to Sara and Anne. Their best friends are their sidekicks, not an indispensable part of a team. I feel sure there are other pairs of girls out there besides my own, doing Sensational Literary Teamwork, but they don't appear in any books I've read. Maybe that's exactly why I make them up."
Elizabeth Wein was born in New York, and grew up in England, Jamaica and
Pennsylvania. She now lives in Perth, Scotland. Elizabeth is a member of the Ninety-Nines, the International Organisation of Women Pilots and it was her love of flying that partly inspired the idea for Code Name Verity. Her latest book, Rose Under Fire, set towards the end of the second world war, also features a young heroine with plane-flying skills.
1. Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee (The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien)
I confess it - I read The Lord of the Rings 20 times when I was 14. Any subtext of class or sex that might mar this pairing for me as an adult went straight over my head when I was a teenager. Frodo was the love of my life, and his under-the-radar heroism in the face of cosmically proportioned evil shaped every character I've ever invented. It's true that I only really adored Sam because he also adored Frodo; but there's no doubt that without their teamwork the One Ring could never have been destroyed.
2. Laura and Pa Ingalls (The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder)
My lack of girl teams made me tempted to choose Laura and Mary, but I'd be fooling myself if I didn't admit that the real teamwork in the Laura Ingalls Wilder books is achieved by Laura and her father. From the very first book, Little House in the Big Woods, Pa is the most important character other than Laura herself, and there is a connection between them that none of the others around them ever really understands - their appreciation of the wilderness, their longing to keep moving. In The Long Winter, Laura and Pa form the Ingalls' family's front line in a battle for basic survival. It is their teamwork that harvests and hauls the hay that becomes their precious winter fuel; it is their hours and months of twisting that same hay into logs that saves the family from freezing to death. When Laura wakes up in the middle of the night and recognises the sound of the spring wind after seven months of snow and starvation, it is Pa to whom she specifically addresses her delight and relief: "Pa! Pa! The Chinook is blowing!"
3. Harriet Vane and Peter Wimsey (Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night and Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L Sayers)
These two form the only romantic pairing on my list! But I include them because they do make a Sensational Team as well as being a sensational couple. Detective work aside, romance aside, Harriet and Peter "work well together", each bringing a separate set of talents to the puzzles they're trying to solve. Their teamwork is metaphorically crystallised in the middle of Gaudy Night when, in a fit of nostalgia for her student days, Harriet writes half a poem about Oxford which Peter finishes. Though their individual poetic style and tone are completely different, together they build a perfect and true sonnet with both literal and figurative levels of meaning. Oh, and they are also both excellent at steering a punt. Not every couple can make teamwork of this difficult skill.
4. Ged and Tenar (The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K LeGuin)
This is another book that's probably on my All Time Top 10, and although it's a male/female pairing it isn't literally romantic. It's also a pretty weird team as Ged spends most of the book in chains as Tenar's captive - a situation that turns the whole prisoner/jailer trope on its head, since Tenar is the weaker, younger, and less experienced of the two. Like a collaborator, she must be "turned" before she and Ged can complete their mission, that of joining the broken halves of the magical Ring of Erreth Akbe, and their personal journey to becoming a team takes up most of the book. Towards the end Ged tells her, "You have knowledge, and I have skill, and between us we have… Call it trust… That is one of its names. It is a very great thing."
5. Pooh and Piglet (from Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner by AA Milne)
Here come the stuffed animals! I suppose that Piglet could be called a sidekick rather than a legitimate team member, but "Pooh-n-Piglet" rolls so trippingly on the tongue, and they have been with me for so long - longer than I can in fact remember - that I feel they ought to be included. Occasionally their adventures take them in opposite directions - the adventure of the Heffalump comes to mind - but ultimately, when Piglet's house is destroyed he moves in with Pooh and that is that. They belong together.
6. Marcus and Esca (from The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff)
I have a feeling that the reason these two appeal to me so much is because they're cut from the same figurative cloth as Frodo and Sam… the suffering hero and his faithful retainer. But despite their overt master and slave relationship, I think Marcus and Esca are more like equals than Frodo and Sam. Esca was a warrior in his own tribe prior to his enslavement; also, he owes Marcus his life. It is their ability to go beyond these daunting barriers and face each other on equal terms that elevates their relationship to that of Sensational Team. And then they go off and find the lost Eagle of the Ninth legion, so that's pretty epic.
7. Edward and Alphonse Elric (from Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa)
I'm going to stretch my definition of "literary" to include manga and comic strips because the graphic genre was formative in my own early reading as well as that of both my children - who picked up their cartoon reading addiction from their mother (I picked up mine from my father). Ed and Al personify brotherly devotion, and it is Ed's determination to restore his brother's body that drives the entire 108 fully illustrated chapters of the narrative. Hiromu Arakawa's story is hugely complex and her artwork is fabulous. The charm of Al's gentle peacemaker's personality trapped in a huge robot-like suit of armour, contrasted with diminutive older brother Ed's relentless belligerence and frightening talents combines to make a great story of adventure and redemption.
8. Calvin and Hobbes (daily comic strip by Bill Watterson, compiled in 11 volumes)
In many ways, this comic strip duo is the ultimate Sensational Team. Their connection morphs depending on the storyline: they can be best friends, siblings, allies, mentor and pupil, rivals, pet and owner - and always, at the heart of their relationship, they are the quintessential "boy and his bear" (though in this case "a boy and his tiger" is a more accurate description). These comics taught my son to read.
9. Hazel and Fiver (Watership Down by Richard Adams)
At 14, I was nearly as emotionally invested in this book as I was in The Lord of the Rings and it was because I had a crush on Hazel. The rabbit. Yes, I confess it. But as with Ed and Al in Fullmetal Alchemist, it is the brotherly relationship of Hazel and Fiver that drives the plot of Watership Down. Hazel is the protective elder sibling, the reluctant leader, the responsible half of the team; Fiver is the gifted but erratic visionary whose talents are key to everyone's survival, but who lacks charisma or diplomacy. They can only escape together.
10. Wart and Merlyn (The Sword in the Stone by TH White)
Arthurian literature from all ages shaped the path of my career - my first five novels are about Arthur's children and grandchildren. The Sword in the Stone was my first introduction to Arthur, so early on in my reading that I didn't actually know what was going to happen. I was so invested in the instant guide/guardian/lecturer/friend give-and-take of these two mythic yet human characters that I spent my first year of high school measuring up every single one of my teachers as a potential Merlyn to refine my own Wart-like potential. It was probably a little disappointing that none of them could give me lessons by transforming us into fish or ants or wild geese.